What?! Who wants more meetings? Here me out. I've been around the block as a project manager. Let me tell you... the team is wasting more time than you know just thinking about: Who do I talk to? What details am I missing? What's a workable plan? What if I'm wrong? When I check on people, the overwhelming majority say some version of "I'm stuck". What can we do as facilitative leaders? ✅ Call a planning meeting early. ✅ Facilitate meetings before milestones to do prep. ✅ Run quick problem solving sessions to ensure progress. Yes, more meetings. But, results become accelerated. What's stopping you from running tactical meetings more often?

If you find yourself coordinating events and projects because nobody else is either doing it well or wants to do it... Then you might be a facilitator. Here's the one thing tho: You have to coordinate with resolve 🫡 AND heart ❤️. All resolve means people think you're a jerk. All heart means constant change and no progress. Been there? Feel free to share!

Public speaking? Fear of failure? Difficult people? For me, it would have to be handling difficult people. The thought of an obstinate person being openly negative makes my head spin. I tend to ignore or shut down when faced with such folk... But then a mentor laid some practical wisdom on me. How often do we actually encounter someone that really needs to be addressed? Not very often. In fact, almost never. I still want to be ready in the off chance that someone else is having a bad day, or shouldn't be in the session at all. However, knowing my mentor was constantly around some pretty openly critical people or troublemakers all the time and he rarely had to result to extreme measures, like booting them out, made me feel better about jumping into running sessions with new folks. Plus, I've found there's ways of identifying potentially difficult personalities early. What's the scariest part of facilitation for you?

When did you have the first feeling that you successfully conducted a team? For me, it was 10 years ago. It was a break-out group charged with planning out a complex scenario. There were about 30 experts in the room. I was the youngest by far, and I was intimidated. As the discussion started, things seemed on track. But very quickly, as engineers are want to do, they were diving down detailed paths and bickering over minutiae. It was painful because we weren't really meeting the intent. After 30 minutes of this, I had to speak up. I informed the group that we were well off track and that we needed to revisit our purpose there. After some stunned silence, the "team leader" agreed and brought the group back on track. While that moment may seem small to some, it was momentous to me. I experienced the directive clout that a facilitator brought to a room... Even a room of 20 to 30 year veterans! I've observed that good facilitative leaders: ✅ Sense the room ✅ Speak with conviction ✅ Hold people accountable When was your first facilitative moment?

I'm glad you're here! 🤩 This is a newly launched community, so it's a little light on content for now. The good news for you is that means more one on one time and discussion around your specific needs and goals!!👍 🗨️ So, if you feel up to it, take a minute to introduce yourself in a new post! Tell us: 1. What your current role/position/ job is 2. What's your dream facilitative version of yourself NEXT, go to the Classroom tab and choose the START HERE course! I look forward to building a community with you that grows as you do and helps you master facilitation skills that changes career trajectories! 😎 Welcome again!